The Party’s Over takes place in the pre-pop world of the beatnik, where London (Chelsea, to be exact) is a reckless but somewhat dowdy place, where the wild antics of a group of nihilistic artists consist mostly of listening to jazz, drinking pints of mild and wearing baggy jumpers.
Review by Pat Long
Marking the first cinema outing for three quarters of the team who would very shortly afterwards find fame as The Goons, Penny Points to Paradise follows gormless pools winner Harry Secombe and his friend Spike Milligan in an extremely gloomy-looking post-war Brighton.
Review by Pat Long
Across the 13 movies he made until his death aged 55 in 1973, Jean-Pierre Melville created a world that has been rarely matched in the history of cinema – for its pessimism.
Review by Pat Long
Lionised by a particular kind of (mostly male) film fan, Sam Peckinpah’s accomplishments as a director are often overshadowed by his legendarily disordered personal life. And much like the man himself ‘Bloody Sam”s 1974 film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is loved and loathed in equal measure.
Review by Pat Long
Hailed repeatedly as the greatest Brazilian film of all time, Black God, White Devil is at the very least a truly remarkable work.
Review by Pat Long
As is the case with Orson Welles, Terrence Malick’s first film is also his best. Indeed, the reclusive director’s 1973 masterpiece can justifiably make a claim to be one of the greatest debuts ever made: by turns frightening, funny and deeply beautiful, there’s very little else like it, as this new print from the BFI proves.
Review by Pat Long
As movie openings go, the first minute of this landmark British noir takes some beating. Surveying a night blacker than newspaper print, a disembodied voice introduces us to the scene we’ll spend the next 100 minutes touring: ‘the night is tonight, tomorrow night or any night. The city… is London’.
Review by Pat Long
Theorem, from 1968, is the ultimate summation of Pasolini’s creative preoccupations. His first big-budget international production, it’s part dream and part documentary, part parable and part political attack, part satire and part sex farce. It also amasses an array of stylistic and intellectual contradictions that amaze with each viewing.
Review by Pat Long